Thursday, July 30, 2009

Playing Store

One of Brady's latest obsessions is playing store. Recently during rest time she turned her room into a store, complete with all the hanging clothes she could get her hands on hung onto the foot board of her bed. She will pretty much take any opportunity to play store.

One afternoon in June we had a grocery store out on the deck. She choose some food items from her play kitchen, basically grabbing whatever she first got her hands on because she was anxious to set up shop. Then she told me the name and price for each item. My favorite product was the hamburger top (one half of a bun). I still crack up thinking of that. We displayed the signs and food stuff on her picnic table. And then we took turns playing the roles of customer and cashier. This was a great way to review number skills. She can count with the best of 'em, but doesn't always recognize numbers after 10. So, when I was the customer I would ask questions to prompt her such as, "How much are the cookies? What does that say... twenty....?" And when I was the grocer I would say things like, "The drinks are fifteen cents (while pointing to the price tag), is that okay with you?" She loved this. And got better and better at recognizing the numbers and grasping the concept of twenty-nine being a 2 with a 9 on it's right side and forty-three being 4 and then 3,etc. (I have no idea of the technical name for this.) I love when I can sneak a little learning into our playtime. She also used her imagination to the fullest adding a doll to be the customer's baby and such. It was a fun, long-lasting activity for a not-too-hot summer day.